development of the great plot; perhaps on and instruction; and, whilst it may perhaps ART. III.-The English Cyclopædia: a New But the termination of the present contest will not necessarily involve the return of peace. The South, indeed, has fairly In a work which is not yet a quarter so conquered her freedom, and may fairly look well known as it deserves to be the 'Nouto a period of rest. The struggle has been veau Manuel de Bibliographie Universelle' long and arduous, and the final victory is, of MM. Denis, Pinçon, and De Martonne, perhaps, one of the least valuable of its which forms one of the series of the 'Manu fruits. It is in such a war as this that the els-Roreta list is attempted of all the character of a nation is formed. The South, encyclopædias which have left the press since fighting with its own hands, and pouring out the invention of printing, and the number of its own blood for liberty and honour, is which the names are given amounts to a strengthened and united by the struggle. hundred and eighty-nine. Among them, The North, intent only on its own sordid however, we find the Novum Organon' of ends, seeking its own profit in the sufferings Bacon, and the Essai sur l'Origine Conand the subjugation of others, and making naissances Humaines' of Condillac; to say of war only a more violent and unscrupu- nothing of an Essay on Nomenclature, exlous pursuit of trade, has but hastened the tracted from the works of Jeremy Bentham, dissolution to which mere selfish interests and a volume entitled 'Studies of the Hismust always tend. Already the partition toric Muse,' published at Dublin in 1820. of the Northern Confederacy has begun. These have surely no valid claim to be put The West is fast growing weary of a war on the register. The Novum Organon,' of which the chief burden has been hers, magnificent as it is, must be considered as a the chief profit of the States of the North- grammar only of the sciences: a cyclopædia East. New England, whose selfishness is not a grammar, but a dictionary; and to mainly caused, and whose violence and fan- confound the meanings of grammar and dicaticism have ultimately gained almost the tionary is to lose the benefit of a distinction entire guidance of the war, is more than which it is fortunate that terms have been ever bent on turning it to ends altogether coined to convey. abhorrent to her sister States. With every day the breach grows wider and more irreparable. It needs, indeed, but little discernment to see that the tide of revolution is rolling rapidly northward, and that the remnant of the Union will soon be tossing on its stormy waves. 6 'a In the case of languages, indeed, there is another valuable but more subtle distinction, which has found its way to expression in words, the difference between a 'dictionary' and a 'vocabulary.' A 'dictionary' is now generally taken to be a collection of all the words of a language, arranged in What the end may be none can yet fore- alphabetical order; and a vocabulary' tell. Three Confederacies at least, of East- collection of words not necessarily arranged ern, Western, and Middle States, seem at in alphabetical order, though often on some present the most probable result. But in other system. The notion of an ordinary truth the revolution has yet but scarce begun, dictionary-such as of French and English, and years must pass before the troubles for instance-with two alphabets, first of one again subside, and the new configuration of language, then of the other, is now so famithe land appears. For the present our task liar to us, and seems so much in the natural is done. We have endeavoured, as fully order of things, that some surprise is occaand clearly as our limits will allow, to re- sioned by the reflection how many centuries count the history of that phase of the great had rolled over the heads of teachers and struggle which is now fast passing away. In pupils before the idea was ever thought of. it we have in truth traced out the story of a The Romans studied Greek through all the nation's birth. It is a story full of interest classical ages without the assistance of a Greek and Latin Dictionary; nor, indeed, in literary history. The first work that did such a work come into existence till bore the name in England was the famous both of the languages were dead. The Cyclopædia, or Universal Dictionary of the earliest is the production of Crastoni, an Arts and Sciences,' by Ephraim Chambers, Italian monk of the fifteenth century, who published in 1728, the remarkable success was contemporary with the fall of Constanti- of which, both at home and abroad, led to nople, and the introduction of printing. The its imitation and expansion, about twenty fact is the more singular that the invention had years afterwards, in the still more famous been all but hit upon more than a thousand Encyclopédie' of Diderot and D'Alemyears before. The Greeks had begun, to- bert, which was the first that bore the name wards the close of the classical ages, to in France. But Chambers's 'Cyclopædia' make partial collections of obscure and diffi- was, as the second part of the title distinctly cult words, and to arrange them with their stated, a 'Dictionary of Arts and Sciences' explanations in the order of the alphabet. The only; and it retained that character in all alphabetical arrangement of the subject mat- its numerous subsequent editions till its ter of a book of any kind was in itself no metamorphosis into Rees's Cyclopædia,' small achievement. That idea was the germ when its original pair of volumes expanded of all books of reference, of volumes for into five and forty, and its character exoccasional consultation, instead of continu- panded with its bulk. Chambers made no ous reading; and the man who originated claim to having invented a new species of these was almost as great a benefactor to publication. I come,' he says in his Preliterary mankind as he who invented an in- face, like an heir to a large patrimony dex. The distinction between a cyclopædia gradually acquired by the industry and enin the order of the alphabet and one in any deavours of a long race of ancestors. What other order is as great as that between a the French and Italian academists, the Abbé 'dictionary' and a 'vocabulary,' and as de- Furetière, the editors of Trevoux, Savary, serving of being embodied in set terms Chauvin, Harris, Wolfius, Daviler, and whenever such terms can be agreed upon. others have done, has been subservient to At present there are two rival words, cy- my purpose.' clopædia' and 'encyclopædia,' which have long carried on a contest for preference to represent the same meaning; and of the two great undertakings which have recently divided the attention and the patronage of the English public- the Encyclopædia Britannica' and the English Cyclopædia' -one bears the shorter and the other the longer title, though the alphabetical arrangement is happily common to both. The The name of Harris- the only English one that appears in this list is that of the author whose work no doubt directly sug gested Chambers's own. In the List of Subscribers prefixed to Harris's volume occurs the name of Mr. John Senex,' the bookseller to whom Chambers was an apprentice, and on whose counter he is said to have written during his apprenticeship some of the articles in his Cyclopædia. Under the trifling variety of designation Lexicon Technicum' of Harris was, in to which we have referred, the two cyclo- fact, the work which was in possession of pædias equally illustrate the character now the field that Chambers proposed to occupy; attached to the name by the almost unlim- and its author claimed, as we shall see, the ited variety of their contents. A modern original invention of the plan which Chamcyclopædia is a whole library in epitome, bers adopted. with almost the single exception of the literature of the imagination. It is not a dictionary of the arts and sciences only, but of history, geography, antiquities, biogra. phy, of general knowledge and miscellane. ous information. The inhabitant of a lone house in the country who places in his bookcase the two-and-twenty volumes of the Work,' he says, will be to lay before you in a The best Account I can give of the following English Cyclopædia' expects, and not short View what it contains, wherein it differs without reason, to find in them, on occasion, from other Books which may seem to be of the the essence of the twenty thousand volumes same Nature, and from whence I have collected of reference that line the walls of the British the Substance of it. That which I have aimed Museum Reading Room. The full title of Harris's work is 'Lexicon Technicum, or an Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, explaining not only all the Terms of Art, but the Arts themselves.' The plan is developed at length in his Preface: 6 at is to make it a Dictionary not only of bare Words but Things, and that the reader may not This meaning of the term, however unhesitatingly accepted now, is very different Words or the Terms of Art made use of in all only find here an Explication of the Technical from that which it bore a century ago, and the Liberal Sciences and such as border nearly the progress of the change is a curious point upon them, but also those Arts themselves and especially such and such Parts of them as are most death, in 1719, was buried at the expense of Useful and Advantagious to Mankind. In this a charitable friend, who had known him in which was the chief of my Design, I found much better times. less help from Dictionaries already published then One would have expected from their Titles: Chau-Lexicon Technicum shows that, as the au The most cursory examination of the vin's Lexicon Rationale or Thesaurus Philosophi cus is a well Printed Book and the Figures are finely Graved, but 'tis too much filled with the School Terms to be usefully instructive, and is as defective in the Modern Improvements of Mathematical and Physical Learning, as it abounds with a Cant which was once mistaken for Science. 'The Grand Dictionnaire des Arts et Sciences, par M. de l'Académie Francoise hath no Cuts or Figures at all, and is only a bare Explication of Terms of Art, and it seems rather to have been design'd to improve and propagate the French Language than to inform and instruct the Humane Mind in general. And, which I have often wonder'd at, 'tis filled everywhere with Simple Terms, so that you are told what a Dog, a Cat, a Horse, and a Sheep is, which though it may be useful to some Persons who did not know that before and may shew very well that such Descriptions can be given in French; yet how the bare Names of Animals and Vegetables, of Metals and Minerals, can be reckoned as Terms of Art, and consequently make the greatest part of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, I confess I canAnd therefore though his and Mr. Fure thor claims, it is not a mere explanation of words, but of things. Under the head of Engine,' for instance, he gives a full de scription, illustrated with plates, of two engines of no slight importance, which are described as 'the Invention of one of our own Nation, Captain Thomas Savery, a Gentleman very skilful in all Things of this Nature.' The first is for rowing ships by means of paddles; the other 'for raising Water by the Force of Fire,' in which, says Dr. Harris, 'he hath shewed as great Ingenuity, depth of Thought, and true Mechanick Skill as ever discovered itself in any design of this Nature.' Savery's engine is in fact, as is well known, one of the steps or strides in the progressive invention of the steamengine. not see. tiere's Dictionary may be Books very well done in their way and are certainly very useful for those who would be perfectly acquainted with the French Tongue, yet I did not find much assistance from them, with regard to my Design.' To return to Dr. Harris's Preface: it appears, on an examination of the French works to which he refers as likely to be compared with his own, that the Dictionary of Thomas Corneille,-that of 'M. de l'Aca démie Française,' bears the nearest resemblance to it. In the 'Biographie Universelle' it is indeed expressly advanced, that 'Corneille's work may be regarded as The work to which this is a Preface is the first basis of the Encyclopædias of one that would apparently reward a more Chambers and Diderot.' But the plan of minute examination than it has yet received. Corneille's Dictionary appears to have been The 'Lexicon Technicum' first appeared in the mere result of accident-the outgrowth one folio volume, in 1704-not as has been of a singular combination of circumstances, sometimes stated in 1706 or in 1708-and of some interest in literary history. Among among its list of subscribers there is one the Forty of the French Academy engaged name beside which all the others sink into in compiling the famous Dictionary of the the shade, that of Mr. Isaac Newton, Mas- French Language, the Abbé Furetière was ter of the Mint.' The name of Newton is one. It came to be discovered in 1684 that, cited with striking frequency in the volume; while taking part with his colleagues in the and in the Supplement published in 1710 magnum opus,' he had privately obtained there is an article De Acido,' by Sir Isaac a privilege for printing a dictionary of his himself, inserted with the permission, as Dr. own, which he originally styled a 'DictionHarris informs us, of its 'illustrious author.' ary of the Arts and Sciences' only, but In the same year, 1710, Dr. Harris became afterwards proposed to convert into a dica secretary of the Royal Society, under the tionary of the language in general. The presidency of Sir Isaac. His fellow secre- Academy took the alarm, accused the distary, appointed at the same time, was Sir loyal member of plagiarism, appealed to its Hans Sloane; but the subsequent fortunes own exclusive privilege for printing a dic of the two colleagues were remarkably dif- tionary, and, refusing the plausible offer of ferent: while Sir Hans was elected to the the Abbé to allow to be struck out of his presidential chair in succession to Newton, manuscript all that did not relate to the and at his death, full of years and honours, Arts and Sciences-an offer in which from left the will which gave birth to the British his previous underhand conduct it not unMuseum, the unfortunate Harris was dis- reasonably suspected an ambush - voted missed from his post before the close of his Furetière out of its list of members and first year of office, apparently for some now obtained the suspension of his privilege. unknown misconduct, struggled with pov-The Abbé aimed at them in return a volley erty for the remainder of his life, and at his of pamphlets in the disguise of pleadings, so The three Dictionaries of Furetière, of Corneille, and of Harris, stand thus in a singular relation to each other; and the plan of that by Harris, the supposed original of our all-embracing Cyclopædias, is evidently the most contracted of the three. While Furetière's volumes aim at comprising the whole stories of a language, Corneille's are restricted to a part, and Harris makes a merit of omitting much that Corneille inserted. But all, in spite of the distinction which Harris affects to draw, are in a considerable degree, dictionaries of things, not words: neither Furetière nor Corneille confined himself to an explanation of the terms they collected merely as elements of language. By the manner in which Harris speaks of the 'Lexicon Rationale' of Chauvin, it may be supposed that the plan of that work approached his own still more nearly; but we have looked in vain for the opportunity of examining a copy. The real merit of Harris must be sought in the ability of his execution, rather than the originality of his plan, and in this ability his follower Chambers appears to have decidely surpassed him. full of pungent wit that the whole series very inaccurate, was for a time the best of was reprinted, with notes and an introduc- existing gazetteers. tion by M. Charles Asselineau, in 1858, and compared by him, not unjustly, to the famous 'Provincial Letters' of Pascal. Before the end of the conflict the Abbé died, but not before he had brought his work to a conclusion. It was published in Holland; and though it did not appear till 1690, two years after his death, even then it anticipated by some years the publication of the slow labours of the Forty. As the Dictionary of Furetière was particularly rich in terms of art and science, while the Academy had determined to exclude many of such technical terms from the accredited vocabulary to which its stamp was attached, the measure was adopted by the Abbé's opponents of issuing a supplementary Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, not by the French Academy in a body-MM. de l'Académie Française-but by a single member; and the member who did duty on the occasion was Thomas Corneille, a brother of the great dramatist, Pierre, and himself a dramatist, some of whose productions still keep possession of the stage. In the Preface to his Dictionary, Corneille did not even name Furetière's; but, without naming it, he attacked it with great acerbity, and certainly pointed out a few blunders of a discreditable character, but taken so far apart as to show that the scrutiny for faults had been very searching. The Dictionary of Furetière was, in fact, one of considerable merit, and continued for almost a century to rival the Dictionary of his offended brethren, but with countless alterations and augmentations, not the least important of which was that of its title; for it was known, not as the Dictionary of Furetière, but as the 'Dictionnaire de Trevoux,' the place at which it was published. Trevoux being, under the old régime, a town not within French jurisdiction, attained a degree of The leading idea of the French Encycloliterary importance as a spot where books pædia, so far as the title expressed it, was, might be printed which had not received that it was to be a Dictionary not only of official sanction; and the 'Journal de Tre- the Arts and Sciences, but also of Trades voux' and the 'Dictionnaire de Trevoux' and Handicrafts, a Dictionnaire raisonné were long famous as the organs of the Jesu- des sciences, des arts, et des métiers.' The its before their suppression. The 'Diction- real distinguishing feature of the publication naire' assumed more and more in its ex- was that it aimed not only at supplying inpanded editions the character of a Cyclopæ- formation, but at directing opinions, its ar dia, till it was finally driven from circula- ticles being often as distinct in character tion by the Encyclopædia of Diderot, which from those of an ordinary cyclopædia as the was partly aimed against it. On the other leading article in a newspaper from its or hand, the Dictionary of Thomas Corneille dinary paragraphs of news. seems to have sunk, after a few editions, since been published some professed Prointo the same oblivion as the main body of testant cyclopædias, and some professed his dramas, and as a voluminous Gazetteer Catholic cyclopædias; the work of Diderot which he also compiled, and which, though and D'Alembert might have been appropri The idea having become popular in England by the success of Harris and Chambers, a swarm of 'Dictionaries of the Arts and Sciences' arose, the production of which was favoured by the new practice of publishing in parts or numbers, which was peculiarly adapted to such works as these. None of them, however, could dispute pre-eminence with the work of Chambers, which was called by Bowyer, the learned printer, the pride of booksellers, and the honour of the English nation.' It even filled a space in the eye of Europe, till the great French Encyclopædia rose to eclipse it, and give its own name to an epoch and an era in the literary history of the eighteenth century. There have - ately styled the Cyclopædia of Sceptics.' [technical terms, &c., are explained as they Originally founded on a translation from the occur in the order of the alphabet.' 'This English of Chambers, it still resembled it plan,' we are told in the Preface, 'differs in' many particulars, though the conductors from that of all the Dictionaries of Arts and thought fit to speak of their model both in Sciences hitherto published;' and the writthe Preface and in the article 'Encyclopédie' er was so confident of its value, as to add with undisguised disrespect. The main fea- that whoever has had occasion to consult ture of the French publication in which the Chambers, Owen, &c., or even the voluminplan of Chambers was conspicuously depart-ous French Encyclopédie,' will have dised from, was that the names of places were covered the folly of attempting to communiintroduced, though Biography was rigidly cate science under the various technical excluded. Above all, the scale of the work terms arranged in alphabetical order.' Acwas that of a modern cyclopædia, instead of cording to a notice in a subsequent issue of the scale of Chambers and Harris. Includ- the 'Britannica,' written by its editor, Mr. ing the Supplement, which was begun a few Macvey Napier, the plan which Smellie years after the main work was ended, it oc- adopted was not even novel, but had been cupied twenty-two folio volumes of text, to used in 1745 by a Mr. De Coetlogon, a which were added eleven volumes of plates, Frenchman, naturalized in England, in a cymaking the set thirty-three in all. Its issue clopædia entitled 'A Universal History of from the press occupied more than a quarter the Arts and Sciences.' Whether novel or of a century from 1751 to 1777. Final- not, its value was more than questionable. ly, it is to be noted that it was not the work Those who have occasion to consult' a cyof an individual, but of a distinguished com-clopædia are in a different stage of progress pany of select contributors. from those who are commencing the systemThis last important feature in the renown-atic study of a science. If it be really of ed French Encyclopædia was adopted in no advantage to a particular reader to find the project of an English one, which, had it the information he is in search of in a detachever been carried beyond a project, would ed form, he is probably in the position of doubtless have made its mark in the litera- one who attempts to use a dictionary before ture of the eighteenth century. Dr. Gold- mastering a grammar. The arrangement, smith wrote the prospectus of a cyclopædia, which is a stumbling block to him, is the of which he proposed to take the editorship, most convenient of stepping-stones to others. and articles for which were promised by There is of course a limit to the utility of Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. The plan dividing, as well as a limit to the utility of was checked by the unexpected coldness of bringing together, in a work of the kind, and the booksellers, but only finally put an end it is in the judicious distribution of the mato by the premature death of Goldsmith in terials of a cyclopædia that a great part of 1774. Three years before in 1771a the work of its editorship consists; but to similar work, destined for a wide celebrity, solve the difficulty by Mr. Smellie's method had appeared in Edinburgh under singular-is to solve it with more loss than gain. ly different auspices. The Encyclopædia The final success of the Encyclopædia Britannica' professed to be 'by a society of Britannica,' instead of being traceable to gentlemen in Scotland,' but the society of Mr. Smellie's device, was owing to the gentlemen' consisted of Mr. William Smel- adoption of a plan which led to his indig lie only; who, according to his biographer nant secession. The 'Cyclopædia' of ChamKerr, compiled singlehanded the whole of bers had been characterised, even in its enthe first edition, and used to say jocularly larged editions, by its restriction to scienthat he had made a Dictionary of the Arts tific and miscellaneous subjects; it contained and Sciences with a pair of scissors." Be- no article whatever on a proper name, either tween modesty and jocularity Smellie did geographical or biographical. The French not do himself justice, for many of the arEncyclopédie' had, as has been already menticles were written, and well written, by tioned, innovated on this plan by admitting himself, who, while following the trade of some geographical names, and in the Supprinter, had a degree of learning which plement a few biographical names were also would have qualified him for a professorship, allowed to slip in. A new edition of the 'Enas well as a fund of humour which made cyclopédie,' which commenced in 1782 under him a favourite companion of Robert Burns. the title of Encyclopédie Méthodique,' The chief ground on which the new cyclopa- with great alterations in its plan, which dia appealed to public favour was that it was compiled on a new plan, in which the different Arts and Sciences are digested into distinct treatises or systems, and the various a will be touched on more particularly hereafter, contained, in addition to dictionaries of Geography, a Dictionary of History," in which biography was admitted. This |